“So is that the economy?” she asks. “Is that just the state of that people are busy (the show opened during the Flames playoff run, which didn’t help) and have got lots of things demanding of their time and it’s hard to get their attention?”

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The Herald spoke to a wide range managers from a wide range of arts organizations in town to try to get a sense of how the current environment of low oil prices and the resulting downturn in the Calgary economy is impacting the arts scene here.

Turns out ticket sales aren’t always down — in many cases, they’re holding up quite nicely.

However, public support at a variety of levels is stuck, or declining, or — in the case of the upcoming Canada Council restructuring of its programs — about to undergo a dramatic makeover.

And private support — through individual donors, and corporate sponsors, particularly from companies connected to the oil and gas sector — is wobbling.

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“We’re starting to feel some of the effects (of the oil shock) from some (corporate) sponsors,” says Calgary Opera General Director and CEO Bob McPhee.

The first sign came when the opera’s $10,000 a table gala fundraiser wasn’t the instant sellout it’s been in recent years, he says, of an event that annually helps raise around $250,000.

“We had one oil and gas company confirm a table,” McPhee says, “then call us a couple weeks ago to say, we have to cut it.

“The ripple takes a while to hit people and affect us,” McPhee says, “but I’m concerned about the future and individual donations — all of those things.

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“I think we’re just feeling the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “It’s going to get worse.”

Lunchbox Theatre artistic director Mark Bellamy says all the Alberta theatre companies attending the recent PACT (Professional Association of Canadian Theatres) conference in Toronto were talking about the impact of the oil shock on their organizations.

“So many of us in Calgary have a lot of our sponsorship come from the oil and gas sector,” he says, “certainly the smaller companies.

“They’re all pulling back,” he says, “and it’s understandably so in many ways. When you’re laying off thousands and thousands of people, it’s very hard to then say we’re giving this money to an arts organization — even though the money (corporate sponsors donate) goes back into the community in a very meaningful way.

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“What it means for us in the arts,” he says, continuing, “like every other sector in Calgary, (is that) we have become a little too reliant on oil and gas. We have to diversify the way we look at revenue streams, and how we approach corporate partnerships — and how we can give back to that industry so there’s a meaningful exchange between the arts and business.”

“We are attempting to diversify (our revenue stream),” he says, “and I think we are attempting too late to diversify.

“One of the great things about coming into this community (from Toronto in 2011),” he says, “was that you were able to rely upon a great deal of support from the oil and gas community.

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“There’s still a very viable corporate community in Calgary and Edmonton (is) also interesting,” he says, “because we have the advantage of being in both cities. Edmonton doesn’t (yet) seem to be as affected (by the oil shock) as Calgary.

“It’s a function of trying to be a resilient organization in these times,” she says. “It’s the only way to survive.”

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In fact, for Porteous and ATP’s executive director Vicki Stroich, there’s lots to feel encouraged about — if they could just look past the daily gloom of the local business pages, which these days make the Old Testament look like a Lunchbox Theatre comedy.

“We’ve had a really solid year this year,” Stroich says, “in terms of single ticket sales and response to our subscriptions this season, but it’s always interesting too, to see how the media — or how the public — receives word of austerity and words about instability in the major industry (in town).

“Whether it’s directly affecting them or not,” she says, “it leads to them being more concerned about personal finances.

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“And so we’re always curious,” she says. “How is it going to affect our individual donors? How is it going to affect ticket buyers? Are they going to take a look at their entertainment budget and shift things?

“Someone (a sponsor or donor) could drop out (at any time),” she says, “so there’s Plan B’s and Plan C’s piling up all over the place.”

For Downstage artistic director Simon Mallett, one of his small, independent theatre company’s innovative Plan Bs was to create a show that’s actually about oil and gas, and its relationship with Alberta agriculture, called Good Fences.

The show was developed in conjunction with Alberta Theatre Projects as part of the 2012 playRites Festival — sponsored by, among others, pipeline giant Enbridge — but once that run concluded, Mallett’s company took a survey where they discovered one of the barriers to a lot of folks attending performing arts is the location of the performance — so they retooled Good Fences and took it on the road.

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“It travels with its own lighting setup,” he says. “It doesn’t need to be (performed in) a theatre — and so that’s sort of connected to trying to remove the barrier of location, and not necessarily requiring people to journey all the way downtown, if they live somewhere like Arbor Lake.

“When they get home from a day at work, “he says, “they might not want to travel all the way downtown to engage in arts and culture — so by bringing the work to them (and to other cities, such as Lethbridge and Red Deer), it’s a way we can engage people who might not otherwise be participating in the arts and cultural scene in Calgary.”

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For DJD’s Sundstrom, the erosion of the corporate sector’s role in arts funding has been going on longer than since oil tanked last summer.

“We have seen a deterioration,” Sundstrom says, “over (the past) 15 years of corporate support of the arts.

“Even if we go back,” she adds, “to the Klein years when the province was fairly wealthy, we didn’t see an increase in arts funding provincially — and then, once there was cutbacks in health and social services, then those organizations became louder voices in the corporate sector for support to replace (what was lost in the cuts).

“That’s what I worry about now,” she says. “When there’s cutbacks to other areas, it increases the pressure on corporations and will divert even more of the scarce resources away from arts funding.”

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While arts organizations grapple with a not-so-new normal when it comes to corporate sponsorships, there are still good news stories out there.

Glenbow president and CEO Donna Livingstone says Chevron once again picked up the tab for everyone visiting the Glenbow on Family Day, turning that into the one Monday in February people could actually enjoy.

“Usually we get maybe 1,500 people on a Monday in February,” says Livingstone. “(That particular Monday), we had over 7, ooo come in.”

For Chevron, the opportunities of providing access to one of the city’s cultural jewels outweighed any concern over optics.

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“We’ve been a sponsor or partner with Glenbow for almost 20 years,” says Chevron spokesman Leif Sollid. “With the Community Day (event), we sponsored the first one in 2013 after the flood to encourage Calgarians to return to the downtown core. We thought it was a great way to give an opportunity for people who might not otherwise be able to afford the facility an opportunity to visit — and it is a world class museum, and something we should be proud to have in Calgary.

“Chevron Canada is going to continue funding our partners,” Sollid adds, “including the Glenbow. At our current pace, we have no plans to curtail our social investment spending whatsoever, going forward.”

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And whatever the optics are of large corporate galas to benefit the arts during a downturn, the truth behind most corporate investment in the arts is a lot more grassroots and a lot less Great Gatsby, says Banff Centre’s new president and CEO, Janice Price.

“Much of the corporate support in our case,” Price says, “actually goes toward supporting programs that make what we do more accessible to audiences.

“Connecting those dots will be very important for corporations to do a good job communicating that,” she says, “and we’ll be happy to help them with that.”

That sort of corporate community investment is what made it possible for Banff Centre to present a children’s festival featuring international acts on a rainy day in mid-May, that drew 2,000 people, who jammed venues charging a top price of $5 a ticket — and will make possible pay-what-you-can weeknight performances of many acts performing this summer at the Banff Centre.

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In a couple of weeks, Lunchbox Theatre will open its doors for a series of free readings, part of its annual Suncor Stage One series. It’s a new play development program that provides feedback to Calgary and Alberta playwrights from audiences and actors and a director.

It’s been sponsored by Suncor (then Petro Canada) since 1988 — and the company remains committed to the program, says Nicole Fisher, Suncor’s Senior Advisor on Media and Issues Management.

“All of our of our investments are intended to help communities grow and thrive,” says Fisher, “and become sustainable. We look at different areas, and one of those areas is inspiring innovation.“

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Stage One is only one of many Suncor Community investments, including a significant contribution to the Peter Lougheed Leadership Centre at The Banff Centre, and also a significant sponsorship investment in the new Decidedly Jazz Danceworks centre.

However, even at Suncor — as elsewhere — they are battening down the hatches on their community investment spending.

“We are unable to consider any new partnerships,” Fisher says, “or community investments at this time but we’re reviewing that decision quarterly — or more frequently, as conditions change.”

For McPhee, who has been raising money for non-profit arts companies in Alberta since the early 1980s, the only certainty in this oil shock is that sooner or later, it stops.

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“I’ve been in this province 30 years,” he says, “and I’ve been through boom and bust, and boom and bust and we’ll get through this one again.

“It’s just (a question of) how long does it go on,” he says, “and how long does it take for oil to stabilize at whatever the hell level it does?

“If it stabilizes,” he says, “companies can plan and then we can plan on more support — so it’s how long does this volatility last, and we’ll ride it out.

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